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Prospective Randomized Study for the Comparison of Adding Adefovir Dipivoxil and Switching to Entecavir in Patients With Lamivudine-resistant Chronic Hepatitis B

Brief Summary

Antiviral resistance mutations limit the efficacy of therapy for chronic hepatitis B. At year 2, resistance to adefovir may occur as high as 25% in patients with history of lamivudine resistance. Resistance to entecavir is reported to be 10% in lamivudine refractory patients during the same period. However, combination of lamivudine and adefovir decreased the adefovir resistance rate as low as 0% in the recent studies. By overcoming the antiviral resistance, the efficacy of therapy will be maximized. This study is intended to compare the efficacy of two strategies, combination of lamivudine and adefovir vs. entecavir monotherapy in patients with lamivudine resistance.

Although it is assumed that combination of lamivudine and adefovir would be more effective than entecavir monotherapy for lamivudine resistant patients, we cannot verify the assumption, because there is no data directly comparing these two strategies until now.

The aim of this study is to determine the most effective therapy for the patients with lamivudine resistant chronic hepatitis B. We will compare the PCR negativity (<60 IU/ml) of HBV DNA at year 2 in patients receiving 'the combination of lamivudine and adefovir' and 'entecavir monotherapy'.

Since we are planning to include lamivudine-resistant chronic hepatitis B patients regardless of HBeAg status, we assumed the PCR negativity (<300 copies/mL or <60 IU/mL) in adefovir-lamivudine combination and entecavir monotherapy group as 55% and 34%, respectively, considering HBeAg status and lower detection limit of PCR.

The result of this study will be able to clearly demonstrate the superiority of combination therapy with lamivudine and adefovir to entecavir monotherapy, which provide us the guide to rescue therapy for patients with lamivudine resistant HBV.